U.S.

F-16 Collides With Cessna

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

November 16, 2000 / 5:11 PM EST / CBS

An F-16 military jet collided with a single-engine Cessna Thursday about 20 miles southeast of MacDill Air Force Base, killing at least one person.

A Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman in Atlanta, Kathleen Bergen, said the fighter had been flying with another F-16 20 near Florida's western coast.

The pilot of the military jet ejected and parachuted safely into a nearby golf course at about 4 p.m., said Larry Leinhauser, spokesman for the Manatee County Department of Public Safety.

The pilot, an active duty Air Force captain whose name was not released, landed on a golf course and walked to someone's home to use the phone, he said.

No injuries were reported on the ground.

Gerald Rivera, who was working on a construction site, said he talked to the pilot after he ejected.

"We asked the pilot if he OK and he said, 'Yeah,'" Rivera said to the Sarasota Herald Tribune.

The Cessna was destroyed and jet fuel sparked a large brush fire, Leinhauser said.

Part of the Cessna's wreckage was in a retention pond and investigators were combing the fairways for evidence

An entire green on the fairway was surrounded by yellow crime scene tape and pieces of plane instruments were lying at the base of several trees.

An Air Force statement said the jet was from the 69th Fighter Squadron at Moody Air Force Base in Valdosta, Ga., but Thursday's training mission originated from MacDill.

Don McIlwain, who lives in a nearby subdivision, said he saw two military jets flying south and then noticed a smaller plane that looked as if it would cross the military jets' path.

McIlwain said he remembered thinking, "I hope it's high enough."

"Just as I said that, he went right through it," McIlwain told the Tribune. "The small plane just disintegrated."

Bob Morrow, a golf instructor at Rosedale Golf and Country Club, saw two military jets flying one behind the other while he was giving a lesson on the tee.

"They flew overhead. Then all of a sudden, boom," said Morrow. He said he didn't know which plane hit into the other. "It looked like the little plane came in from the side," he said.

"Debris started falling," he said, describing seeing parts of the fuselage, motor and wings scattering over three of four acres and hitting some homes.

Morrow said he believed no one on the ground was injured though one of the homes had a dent in the roof.

The Lockheed Martin F-16 Fighting Falcon is a single-engine, supersonic jet that can be used for air-to-air combat but most commonly is employed in a ground attack role. Most have a single seat but some have two. The F-16 went into production in 1978 and saw combat in the Persian Gulf War and in Yugoslavia.

In August of this year, there were three U.S. crashes involving an F-16.